CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Even as the state’s legislators debate a Marcellus Shale extraction tax, Brian Grove, a corporate spokesman for Chesapeake Energy knows one thing is certain.

The natural gas companies that have started moving into Pennsylvania are here to stay -- probably for decades.

“Most Pennsylvanians still don’t see it as real,” he told a Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County gathering Wednesday morning. “In northeastern Pennsylvania, where I’m from ... we have 19 drilling rigs right now active in the northern tier. That’s as many, right now, as our company has in the Barnett Shale in Texas.”

He warned that a heavy extraction tax or overly heavy regulation and enforcement could retard the growth of the industry.

That has been the industry’s perspective over the last several years whenever a severance tax has been under discussion.

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